


when it's right (they know).

by Prettything_uglylie



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Deleted Scenes, F/M, Family Feels, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Love, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24664381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prettything_uglylie/pseuds/Prettything_uglylie
Summary: Reid leans forward again, suddenly passionate when he explains, "My mother says when people can tell when men are changing. When you're ready, certain types of people - the right kind of people - will find you. Only when you're ready though."
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Comments: 14
Kudos: 69





	when it's right (they know).

**Author's Note:**

  * For [androgynousmikewheeler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgynousmikewheeler/gifts).



> Though the day fell yesterday, my draft deleted this and they deserve the world so here's a fic of one of our favorite boys and some tropes we love! I love you!

Fran Morgan, he is sure, could look God in the face and tell him everything he could ever know. She is every bit profiler that he is - when Derek falls down this thought path, he wonders how she didn't notice Buford. He hates that thought pattern, it makes him bitter towards her and he knows it's not fair but life isn't fair always, sometimes it just hurts. 

He doesn't think about the last year he had come for her birthday. He doesn't let himself. 

He's in the middle of eating Sarah's delectable chocolate birthday cake as he tells a story about one of their cases, "...and then, Reid figured out the guy's home and street address because of his obsession with the Fibonacci sequence! Like, who can just do that?" 

If Derek Morgan wasn't too busy being mesmerized by the memory of Spencer Reid's hazel eyes alit with the thrill of getting a clue right, he would see the smug and fond look that the female Morgans cast each other, even leading Desiree to mouth, "Dr. Reid," all swooningly at Sarah, who rolls her eyes and flips the younger girl off in response. 

"Sarah!" Fran scolds but is laughing hard as she says it and Morgan shakes out of his reverie and asks, 

"What?" 

"Nothing." Desiree and Sarah both lie before obtaining finished cake plates and heading to the kitchen. 

"So," Fran starts, leaning forward on the couch they're sprawled on and Derek sees the way her eyes gleam with the same glint she gets whenever she talks about him giving her grandbabies. He feels very unnerved by those eyes but he lets her talk, "Have you asked him out yet?" 

He chokes on the air he was inhaling and his chest and face feel too hot. "What?" 

"The way you talk about him," She says, leaning in and her eyes are buzzing with pride and fondness, "Der, you look like you're in love." 

He cringes at the word but doesn't disagree. He thinks about Reid's locks gelled back and running his hand through it to get a large smile in response and a small, "thanks" to his little, "nice hair." compliment. Okay, he might not be able to use the 'I'm not in love' excuse anymore. 

"I'm not ready." He admits softly until his mother gently sets her hand on his shoulder and her eyes are full of easy warmth. 

"I think you don't think that anymore - " 

Desiree and Sarah swing out of the kitchen, causing his jolting away from her hold and as his sisters argue about one thing or another, he stares at the television in front of them before including, 

"He told me to tell you 'happy birthday'." 

He feels her eyes on the side of his face before she says, "Tell Spencer I say thank you." 

He notices how well Reid's first name fits in her mouth, and he pretends he doesn't like it. 

* * *

He enters the bullpen a few weeks later to recognize his favorite lanky genius leaned over the coffee machine and he's frozen for a second. 

Spencer Reid - his Pretty Boy - is just standing there, a waist that Morgan wants to wrap his arms around but is framed perfectly in one of his cuter white button-ups. Mrs. Penelope Garcia had made it her own mission to help the young doctor dress better, and it still makes it quite obvious that he isn't used to it: his grey and white plaid jacket draped over his chair, clearly abandoned but his high-waisted grey and white plaid pants make his waist look small and beautiful pert ass look even more accentuated. 

So, maybe, when he lays a firm slap on Reid's ass that makes the younger boy jump, he doesn't want to take into account how he's thought about doing an action like this that garners a better reaction from the slimmer boy in a hot little moan in the back of his throat. 

"Fuck you, Morgan." Reid murmurs and brings another hand up to run through his hair, and Morgan wants to leave hickeys all over that pale expanse of throat left exposed in the wake of his hand. "What's wrong with you!?!" 

Morgan chuckles and has to restrain himself from wrapping his arms around his scrawny waist and digging his face into the crook of Reid's neck. "Just greeting my pretty boy, you know, how to do it." 

He laughs gently and if Morgan could bottle the sound and keep it for days where the sun feels too dark and Buford's hands still feel like they're on his body, he would do so without hesitation. 

If he could keep this warmth Reid makes him feel all the time, if he could hold Reid and kiss his cheeks and love him and kiss him - 

_Holy shit. Oh, fuck!_

This is what The One feels like. 

_Click_. Capture the moment here because this is the second that the stars align and Derek Morgan realizes that he has already met his soulmate. 

He goes to the bathroom to have a panic attack over something he already knew. 

* * *

They're in the middle of a game of cards - separated from the group, glorious little isolation - after a case when the book and other shoe falls. 

"Oops," Prentiss jokes and he stares at the cover only a moment before placing it, 

"Oh, wait a minute, no you didn't." He can't believe it lays there in his hand, cover yellow in the shade of some of those Dixon pencils Reid uses. He sets the cards down. 

"Where did you find this?" He asks and she laughs, something that lights up her features which makes her look beautiful in a way that makes his heart hurt - he wishes his The One was her. Emily Prentiss is beautiful with brilliant tendencies and a lax body that knows how to laugh, how to smile, and joke while still carrying this mysterious untouchable jaggedness. 

It's not her though. 

She continues, lifting one of those perfect brows, "In the airport. Can you believe it? Haven't read this in fift - like, twelve years." 

He catches the slip-up and he wonders not for the first time, how old she is. 

"Okay, that's funny," she makes an amused little noise and he remembers red-hot all of a sudden that Reid is there. He gathers his cards back in his thick, badly-loved hands. 

"Chapter three is where it starts to get good." He waits for Reid's correction of his grammar. It doesn't come. 

Taking it for the dismissal it was, Prentiss agrees, "Okay, I will let you know when I get there." 

It's a promise of later, of something more and Morgan considers how easy it would be to love her. She is fun to be around and doesn't make him want to end it in kissing. He's practiced in the art of curving his ebony hands around her almost translucently pale breasts from girls in school not her but not unlike her or would know how to tease the head of his cock between her slick folds. He thinks his hands would shake if he tried to unbutton Reid's shirt-collar. 

"Alright, you do that." He makes sure to smile as he says it, makes sure to be accommodating, to charm her. 

She leaves and he watches her as she goes - she would be so easy to love hell, he's probably already laid a girl with the same panties. 

But he doesn't love her. 

He turns to find Reid staring at him, lips pursed up in an amused little smile. He is dragging his ivory love hands across the blue suits - he looks _cute_ , moves the card to a different spot in his pile and Morgan asks, "What?" 

Reid shakes his head, adorable little smirk still splayed across his features and Morgan wants to smack his pretty ass just to get him to 'fess up. _Brat._

"You think you're the only person around here who reads books?" _You think you're the only person around here who makes me hard at inappropriate times?_ He thinks but leaves that in the back of the train of thought. 

"No," Reid's voice is so smug - happy in a way that he shouldn't be when he's been through as much as he has. That's what Reid is, his glowing boy so full of light and love despite everything, despite his own brilliant mind. Reid is sunlight and Morgan is the fool who clenches his fist to try to keep it. "but you never want to talk to me about books." 

_Yes, he does,_ he thinks suddenly pained in an all-consuming way. He wants to listen to Reid ramble about books Morgan couldn't tell you the name of but knows he has soft spots for, as they sit on his couch and Clooney lies on the rug, asleep. Listening to Reid talk about things he loves would be his favorite past-time if he knew he could be one of them. 

He glances at Prentiss and decides swiftly that he doesn't know how she would look pinned into those couch cushions as the afternoon sunlight pours through their curtains and Clooney barks at them, equal parts happy and protective. 

He does for Reid. 

"You think I'm sending her the wrong kinda message?" He asks but his tongue leaves off the bitter taste of _if you could send any kind of message, that would be great._

Reid looks back at her, movements quick like a child hyped on too much sugar - Morgan forgets how _child_ he is sometimes - and Morgan has never felt so warm. Loving Reid feels like loving the sun, like he's allowed to and arguably everyone does but not too closely, not _too_ much - and do not touch. It will kill you if you do. 

He turns back, tongue flicking out to lick those lips Morgan has thought about kissing a thousand different ways. His finger prods up, a sign for a moment but Morgan is not looking at the spindly digit, he's staring at the bird bone of Reid's wrist as he decides how they'd look in his palm. 

_Nice, they'd look nice,_ he decides as Reid sets down his hand of cards and leans forward, voice quiet but brilliant in that way he sounds like when he thinks he _knows_ something. 

Reid's eyes are shining as he talks, "I have noticed you guys sitting next to each other at the round table and I've seen her hanging around at your desk and I just realized if _I'm_ noticing this stuff it must be pretty darn obvious, right?" 

He laughs, taken by how Reid can get it so _right_ and so _wrong_ by his analysis - he thinks of all of those times he has hung out at Reid's desk or Reid at his and their place at the round table naturally being next to each other while Prentiss bounces around, trying to find her place there, and yet, Reid still misses the obvious. He also laughs because he's pretty fond of the way Reid doesn't typically swear, of the way he says _darn_. 

"Okay, wow." He says because at least he knows Reid is looking. He leans in and he feels how intense the genius' eyes are on his face, "You know, Kid, normally I'd say you got yourself a really good point right there but, uh, trust me." 

In response to Reid's eyes, full of something like fascination or yearning that feels like he could pour in a glass and drink. He wonders if Reid even knows the game they're playing. "Emily Prentiss is not the kind of girl who's interested in Derek Morgan." 

_She lost the game a long time ago._

"What kind of girl isn't interested in Derek Morgan?" Reid shrieks out, still a whisper and it sends a churn through him - disbelief like Reid can't believe anyone would not be interested in Morgan, _girl_ like he's presuming Morgan only likes girls. 

He leans back, too much intimacy clogging his throat and he can't stand the way Reid still doesn't seem to get it. 

"The kind of girl who's way too smart to think she can change my ways." The last note is sad, one he has thought about when thinking about telling Reid. 

The genius's brow crinkles in confusion. 

"Everyone knows that I'm not ready to get serious." He continues because he knows he's not ready to pretend he loves someone who isn't Reid for the rest of his life. 

Reid leans back too and some glow in his eyes has dimmed. He makes a non-committal face before suggesting, "Maybe you're a lot more ready than you realize." 

_Do you want me to be ready?_ He thinks suddenly but in a way that isn't sudden like when you feel hunger begin to eat at you more when compared to the last moment. Like it's always there but sometimes it just gets louder. 

He sets for joking, needs a little bit of Reid's sunshine leaking through his loud thoughts like curtains, "Dr. Reid, are you really trying to school me on females right now?" 

That's not it and they both know it. Neither of them says a word. It's too loud. 

Reid leans forward again, suddenly passionate when he explains, "My mother says when people can tell when men are changing. When you're ready, certain types of people - the right kind of people - will find you. Only when you're ready though." 

He stares blankly. The use of gender-neutral language, his profiler brain notes immediately, implies Reid has the court open for much bigger horizons than just girls. Then he thinks: am I not ready yet? Is that why Reid doesn't know? Is Reid not The One?

He knows that last thought is impossible, can feel it in his bones that Reid is the one. 

One, two, three empty beats sit there between them for a moment before he asks, chuckling slightly because what if Reid doesn't even believe in soulmates? 

"You think I'm not on top of my game all of a sudden?" He asks because that's all it is - a game. 

Reid smiles before admitting, "No, I was just trying to distract you so I could take this card. Jin!" 

_Brat_ , he thinks before throwing his cards down with a disgruntled, "Oh, you sneaky little bastard!" 

Reid's rambling, amusement in his pretty-boy face, "When are you people going to learn never play cards with a magician?" 

Jealousy strikes him at the idea of Reid playing this game with anyone else, "What do you mean _you people_?" 

Reid laughs. Like it's funny - like it's a joke. 

_When_ is he going to learn to never play games with Reid? 

Maybe when he remembers that no matter how bright the sun shines, the night still falls. 

And so does he. 

He wonders if Reid has noticed either. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks! If you liked this, kudos and comments are great!


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